The Mystery of the Fatal Firing

by Ron Katz

“There’s still a slight hitch,” observed Barb Silver, as she watched her husband demonstrate his new gait resulting from recent hip replacement surgery. “But probably no one but me would notice.”

“At my age, I don’t get a lot of notice,” said Bernie Silver, “and that’s okay. But my problem is that a limp, or a ‘hitch,’ as you charitably put it, brings negative notice. Nothing says ‘old’ like a little hobbling. Are you sure there’s a hitch?”

“You want me to be honest, right?” she asked.

“I don’t recall requesting that,” he responded. “With my 70^th coming up, somewhat less honesty might be in order.”

“They say ‘70 is the new 50,’” she said.

“When you need hip surgery,” he rejoined, 70 is the new 95.” 

“C’mon,” she said, “it’s hip, so to speak, for a guy to be 70: distinguished good looks, plus the wisdom of the ages, an unbeatable combo.  

“Why don’t you look at it this way? Your hip and thigh bone are now freshly minted titanium, making them the youngest parts of your body by far. In fact, if you averaged the age of all your body parts, your new hip brings the average down to where I’m now quite a bit older than you.”

“Here’s to older women,” he toasted, holding up the Pisco Sour he’d been sipping before his cocktail hour walking demonstration. “And I guarantee you that Silver Investigations”—the detective agency they’d formed together after working for years as investigators at the Alpha Insurance Company—"will never be guilty of age discrimination.”

***

“Long time, no see, Bernie,” greeted Al Jordan from behind his desk. Jordan was vice-president in charge of investigations at the Alpha Insurance Company. He had been Barb and Bernie’s boss when they worked at Alpha, and he still gave them assignments for cases where age was an edge. “Where’s Barb?”

“We met an old colleague of hers in the elevator, and they’re just catching up with each other. She’ll be here in a moment, or ten.”

“That gives us a chance to catch up too,” said Jordan. “How’s the bionic hip?”

“Perfect, according to me and my surgeon. But Barb thinks I still limp a bit.”

“Perhaps a little hitch in your step,” Jordan observed, “but that will actually be helpful in the potential assignment I’d like to discuss with you.”

“I guess that eliminates me from the assignment,” Barb said, as she entered Jordan’s office. “No limps, hitches or other similar problems for me.”

“No problems, I agree,” said Al, “but please don’t change any of those lovely silver highlights in your hair before this assignment is over.”

“Thanks for calling them ‘highlights,’ Al,” she said, “but, no worries. This sleuthing Silver is not going to turn into a sleuthing platinum blonde.”  

“Great, because this is a case about age discrimination at a relatively large high-tech start-up company in Silicon Valley.”

“And you think that we look old enough to be the victims of age discrimination?” inquired Bernie.

“According to the law, age discrimination can occur after 40, so I think you might qualify,” responded Jordan. “The average age of employees at this company is 31.”

“Great,” said Barb. “We’ll fit right in. Neither of us looks a day over 32, and we both have the vast technological knowledge that the Baby Boomer generation is so well known for.”

“Definitely,” chimed in Bernie. “Why just the other night I learned how to turn our TV on and off with each of our three remote control devices. I’m sure that that will impress the chief technical officer of…what is the name of this lucky company?”

“MagniFique Technology,” answered Jordan. “They create technology that makes magnets safer.”

“I’ve never had a problem with magnets,” said Barb. “The ones on our refrigerator, for example, are very user-friendly.”

“Imagine a magnet 1000 times stronger than that,” said Jordan, and then put it in an MRI—Magnetic Resonance Imaging—machine surrounding a human body. The magnets in that machine can attract any loose metal device in the MRI room at hundreds of miles per hour. Those magnets can also burn skin with tattoos, some of which are composed of metallic ink. The company that can make safer magnets, or eliminate them altogether, will become very valuable. MagniFique, which has attracted $200 million in venture capital so far, hopes to accomplish that.”

“Much as we love working with you, Al, we’re too old and low-tech for this one,” said Bernie.

“Old is precisely the point, Bernie,” responded Jordan. “MagniFique has been accused of age discrimination, so obviously one of my younger investigators can’t go undercover to look into that.” 

“But, if one or both of us goes undercover,” protested Barb, “the employees would find out instantly that we know nothing about magnets and MRIs.”

“Not necessarily true,” rejoined Jordan. “I’m not a techie by any means, but how does this sound: ‘One of the problems of MRI magnets is displacement of intra-corporeal metallic foreign objects like old intra-cranial aneurysm clips.’”

“Impressive,” said Bernie. “Did you go to medical school before getting into the insurance business?”

“No,” said Jordan. “That’s just my quick Internet research talking. You can do that too, for general purposes. For tighter spots, we will provide you with your own personal expert, a consultant of MagniFique, who will be only a phone call away from you at any given time.”

“That might work,” said Barb. “Plus, often when I just listen and say very little, people comment how intelligent I am.” 

“Engineers would definitely think that, Barb,” said Jordan, “and you will be meeting a lot of them. Aside from age discrimination, some of them might have out-of-date views on females. There aren’t many females working at Silicon Valley companies in general, and MagniFique is no exception. One very sharp female at MagniFique, however, is their VP of HR, Heather Vickers. Are you available to join me in a meeting with her tomorrow morning at 10 to get the details?”

“What’s the rush?” asked Bernie. “The older we get, the more qualified we are for this assignment.”

“If we wait too long,” Barb interjected, “you might not be limping anymore.”

“I get it,” said Bernie. “Let’s strike while the titanium is hot.”

***

MagniFique headquarters was a collection of nondescript glass and steel low-rise buildings located in an office park of well-manicured lawns. Casually dressed people, mostly in their 20’s and 30’s, moved between the buildings while talking on mobile phones. Many of them glided by on what seemed to Barb and Bernie to be motorized skateboards.

“I hope your skateboarding skills are up-to-date, Bernie,” joked Al.  

“Wouldn’t skateboarding blow his aged cover?” asked Barb.

“Not to speak of the risk,” added Bernie. “At my age, everything hurts some of the time, and something hurts all of the time. I’m not going to add to those problems. Plus, although my hip is titanium, the rest of me is quite vulnerable.”

“They say that, at your age, if you wake up with no pain, you’re probably dead,” said Al.

“Thanks, pal, for that uplifting new perspective,” responded Bernie.

By this time, they had reached the reception area. When Al asked for Heather Vickers, the receptionist told him that, instead, he was to see Vickers’ boss, an Executive VP named Trevor Lackley.

“This is good news,” Al said to Barb and Bernie while they were waiting. “He’s the one who signs the checks.”

“Usually an Executive VP doesn’t do that,” noted Bernie.  

“At a start-up company, even a large one like this,” said Jordan, “executives have to wear many hats. Trevor is responsible for HR, finance and engineering.”

“How can he manage all that?” inquired Barb.

“He probably depends on Heather a lot for HR,” responded Jordan. “The fact that he wants to see us means the problem is serious enough to be above her pay grade.”

At that moment a young man wearing jeans, a t-shirt and sandals approached them. “I’m Trevor’s assistant,” he said. “Please follow me.”

***

Trevor Lackley was around 40, but the deep circles under his eyes and his pasty skin made him look older. He wore stylish gray slacks and a blue Polo shirt. His unpretentious office was littered with scientific journals about all manner of magnets.

“Congratulations on raising your most recent $100 million in venture capital,” greeted Jordan. “These are the investigators I’ve told you about, Barb and Bernie Silver.”

“Thanks, Al,” replied Lackley, “and nice to meet you, Mr. and Mrs. Silver, although I wish it were under more pleasant circumstances. The extra $100 million Al just mentioned is great, but it also adds tremendous pressure. My engineering and financial responsibilities are more than enough to keep me busy, but HR can explode from time to time. This situation has just gotten much worse, which is why I asked to see you before you meet our HR VP, Heather.”

“Worse in what way?” asked Jordan. 

“One of our Senior Engineers, Oswald Green, is 64 and has been complaining about age discrimination and a hostile environment. He’s also on probation for overly aggressive behavior. Yesterday there was an altercation between him and one of our Millennials. Long story short, Oswald filed an age discrimination suit this morning.” 

“How bad was the altercation?” asked Barb.

“You can judge for yourself,” responded Lackley, turning the monitor of his computer toward them. “Another employee caught most of the confrontation on his cellphone video. Apparently, it started when Green heard some of his colleagues discussing an electrical engineering problem in the lunchroom and offered to help. A 30-year old engineer named Jeremy Singer—who also happens to be Green’s supervisor--responded loudly and sarcastically. He called Green ‘grandpa’ and said that the young engineers needed help from someone with more current information. Then the video starts.”

Oswald Green, already somewhat red in the face, appeared on the screen. He was of medium height with a shock of salt-and-pepper hair. He wore unstylish wire-rimmed glasses, baggy khakis and a tucked in short-sleeved white dress shirt, which emphasized substantial girth.

“More current information?” Green asked.

“Yeah,” the younger man on the screen replied. “Someone born after electricity was commercialized.”

Reddening further, Green replied stiffly, “I got an electrical engineering degree from MIT in 1979.”

“And you’re taking the place of someone who graduated in 2007, someone who knows more than you and can’t pay off his college debt. Even I, your supervisor, can’t begin to think of buying a house because Boomers like you are clogging up the system.”

Looking down at the plate in front of the younger man, Green responded loudly: “Perhaps you could afford a house if you didn’t spend so much money on overpriced avocado toast.”

“Perhaps you could help us if your Jitterbug had more computing power,” retorted Singer.

Green then brushed by the table, causing Singer’s plate of avocado toast to crash to the ground. At that point, the younger man pushed Green and the video suddenly ended.

“Avocado toast?” said Bernie. “Those are hardly fighting words.”

“’Grandpa’ certainly is,” said Lackley, “and these days ‘Boomer’ and ‘Jitterbug’ are not far behind. And they could be very expensive words, which is why we need Alpha to investigate. Oswald Green is suing MagniFique for $10 million.”

“’Jitterbug?’” asked Barb. “Last I heard, that was a dance.”

“It’s a phone advertised for seniors,” responded Lackley. “Keys the size of floor tiles, the butt of many jokes. One comedian said that seniors need it only to do two things: call their children and call 911.”

“Returning to the subject at hand,” said Jordan, “the $10 million that could result from a jury verdict is insured, “which is why we’ve brought in Barb and Bernie. What we propose is for Bernie to go undercover to see what he can find out about age discrimination as an employee. Hopefully the video we just saw is an anomaly. While Bernie’s undercover, Barb can conduct a more standard investigation into the lunchroom incident.”

“Sounds good,” said Lackley. “That’s why I wanted to see you before you met Heather, so that Bernie’s identity is unknown even to her. Now that this lawsuit has been filed, Heather is tied up today, so why don’t you meet with her tomorrow morning, Barb?”

“Always glad to meet the Millennials,” said Barb. “I will see if I can locate some torn jeans for the occasion.”

Turning to Bernie, Lackley continued, “Here’s some written material on your new role as a Senior—we should probably change that adjective—Engineer, and here’s the address of our consultant, Rob Hirsch, who will be your technological guardian angel. I’ve told him you’ll stop by his house tomorrow morning, wearing your best Senior-Engineer-in-Disguise outfit. In that disguise, we hope that you find no age discrimination at MagniFique, and then, if there is a trial, you can testify to that effect. But, if you discover age discrimination, we will act promptly to fire the offenders.”

Looking at the piece of paper with the address, Bernie said, “Great, he lives in our hometown of Palo Alto. I will try to look the part of high-tech, geeky Senior Engineer when I meet him. I know I can get the ‘senior’ part right. If we become friends, maybe, after this is all over, he can come to our house and consolidate our three TV remotes.”

***

Heather Vickers had an 8x8 office off a floor of cubicled employees. Her athletic frame fit well into a designer sweatsuit that did not look as if it had experienced much sweat. When Barb arrived the next morning, Heather said “Welcome to my corner office, the corner of the cubicle area, that is. The only reason I get to escape a cubicle is that the confidentiality of HR work requires an enclosed office.”

“How many employees does MagniFique have?” asked Barb. 

“Around 250, and growing at about ten a week,” Heather responded. “What makes that particularly difficult is that Silicon Valley has loads of young, white, male engineers, so that it’s very difficult to have a diverse workforce.”

“I guess Oswald Green helps in that regard,” said Barb.

“Yes and no,” responded Vickers. “Yes, he gives us some age diversity, but he more than makes up for that with all the problems he causes. I assume you’ve seen the video of the mixed-martial-arts confrontation in the lunchroom.”

“Yes,” said Barb, “although trashing avocado toast must be a new martial art. What puzzles me about what you say is that Oswald Green appears to be the victim.”

“He always appears to be the victim, and he never lets me forget it,” said Vickers.

“But the other employee—“Barb objected—“what his name?”

“Jeremy Singer.”

“The other employee called him ‘grandpa’ before adding some other ageist insults.”

“That’s what the tape showed, but Jeremy Singer told me that, in the moments before the video started, Oswald saw that Jeremy and some of his colleagues were working a problem and asked whether the ‘narcissistic snowflakes’ could use some help from a pro.”

“But the video shows Jeremy pushing Oswald,” Barb protested, “who’s 30 years older.”

“Yes,” responded Vickers, “but, preceding the push, is the trashed avocado toast. Quite frankly, I’ve often felt like pushing Oswald myself, and I’m about to fire him for starting the fight and for other over-aggressive behavior that’s put him on probation the last six months. Let him brag about his vast engineering experience at another unlucky company.”

“You seem very angry at Oswald,” responded Barb. “Do you think you can be fair to him as HR VP?”

“I’ve been more than fair,” said Vickers, raising her voice an octave. “But Oswald is not a good cultural fit here. He’s overqualified for his job, which makes him and everyone around him unhappy. But you can see for yourself. I invited him here about 15 minutes ago when I heard you were coming. He said he had to stop at one of our MRI rooms on his way, so why don’t we try to find him there? That will also give you a chance to see our technology in action.”

They headed to the basement, where the spacious rooms containing the heavy MRI machines were located. Each MRI room had an adjacent room for the technician operating the machine. From the adjacent room, the operator could view the MRI room through a sliding glass window.

“No operator is on duty now,” said Vickers as she and Barb got out of the elevator at the basement, “because Oswald is making some adjustments to the machine.”

They entered the technician’s room and heard a loud noise. Vickers looked surprised, and said “That’s the sound of the machine operating, but it shouldn’t be on now.”

They looked through the window and got a back view of the wheeled, ergonomic Aeron chair that Green was sitting in so that he could maneuver around the room. He was bent forward, which they assumed was so that he could perform some adjustment on the machine.

Vickers turned off the machine and tapped on the window to get Green’s attention. When he didn’t respond, she and Barb entered the MRI room. Still no response, so they walked to the front of the Aeron chair. The first thing Barb noticed was that Green was wearing goggles, not his thick, wire-rimmed glasses. The second thing she noticed is that those wire-rimmed glasses were embedded two inches into the back of his neck.

***

While Barb was with Heather Vickers, Bernie visited the Palo Alto home of Rob Hirsch. The Hirsch McMansion was located in one of Palo Alto’s tonier neighborhoods. 

Tall, tanned, and with a well-coiffed head of sandy hair curling neatly over his collar, the 64-year-old Hirsch greeted Bernie, who, wearing a Hawaiian shirt and baggy Dockers, was doing his best to look like a Silicon Valley nerd. “Good outfit,” Hirsch said.

“Nice house,” replied Bernie. 

“Nice enough,” said Hirsch. “I bought it when having $100 million was a thing, but, now that the nouveau billionaires have moved in, I couldn’t afford it today.”

“There goes the neighborhood,” commiserated Bernie, as they walked out back to sit on the deck surrounding an Olympic-sized swimming pool. “I appreciate you’re helping me with the technological aspect of my undercover role at MagniFique. How did you get involved?”

“Trevor Lackley, the MagniFique Executive VP you’ve met, is my nephew.”

“That’s it?” queried Bernie.

“Oh, and I’ve invested $20 million in MagniFique, so I’d hate to see it destroyed by an age discrimination lawsuit.”

“Well, you’re in trouble if you’re depending on my non-existent technological knowledge.”

“I think we can remedy that with this little device,” responded Hirsch.

“Looks like a hearing aid,” said Bernie.

“Looks like one, yes,” said Hirsch, “but it has a couple of special features that I’ve invented. One is that it contains no metal, so you can wear it in an MRI room. I assume you’ve heard that the MRI magnet can move loose metal objects around at hundreds of miles per hour.”

“Yes,” Said Bernie, “which reminds me that I need to ask Alpha Insurance company for some combat pay for this assignment.”

“The second feature,” Hirsch continued, “is that I can hear remotely what’s being said in the vicinity of this device, and I can speak into your ear through the device. That’s what will give you the technological knowledge that your colleagues expect you to have. As a bonus, I doubt that they’ll be surprised that you’re wearing a hearing aid.”

“What if I’m asked to talk about something you don’t know about?” inquired Bernie.

“That is not likely,” answered Hirsch, “since I invented the MagniFique technology. I assure you that you’ll appear to know a lot more than Mr. Oswald Green, and you’ll express it much more politely than he does.”

“Sounds like you think Green’s hiring was a mistake,” noted Bernie. 

“The thing about a $10 million lawsuit, Mr. Silver, is that it can ruin your whole day.” 

“So you don’t think Green is the victim of age discrimination?”

“Perhaps,” said Hirsch, “but it’s trivial compared to what MagniFique is trying to do: make MRIs safer for millions of people while earning billions of dollars in the process. We can’t let Green stand in the way of progress, and, in any event, I’m confident that you, armed with my technological coaching in your ear, will find that there’s no real age discrimination at MagniFique.”

“Sounds like you know Green.”

“We were at MIT together. He was a jerk then, and he’s a jerk now; that really has nothing to do with age.”

“Unfortunately,” said Bernie, “no generation has a monopoly on jerks.”

“Yeah,” agreed Hirsch. “There’s even a new book out called ‘Jerks at Work: Toxic Coworkers and What to Do about Them.’ It should be required reading for anyone who’s had the misfortune of working with Oswald.”

***

After his meeting with Hirsch, Bernie headed to MagniFique. He had to park on the street, because the parking lot was blocked by two police cars, with lights flashing.

Bernie approached what looked like a familiar figure near one of the cars, and tentatively said “Joe?”

“None other than,” Joe Kelly responded. He had been a detective on the SFPD, and Barb and Bernie had cooperated with him on some cases. “The bad guys have started branching out to Silicon Valley, and Palo Alto was looking for a new chief of detectives. Just in time, apparently, because there was a homicide at MagniFique an hour ago. What are you doing here, Bernie, and why do you look so nerdy?”

“Before I answer,” said Bernie, “may I ask the name of the victim?”

“Oswald Green,” answered Kelly. “Do you know him?”

“It’s a long story,” said Bernie. “Can we talk later, or else I’ll blow my cover? Please act like you don’t know me.”

“Sure,” said Kelly. “I was wondering why Barb was here. She made the 911 call, and I’ll be interviewing her shortly.”

“Can you do that at our home, which is not far from here? We’ll tell you everything we know, but I can’t be seen with Barb around here.”

“Usually it’s not the wife whom the husband doesn’t want to be seen with,” said Kelly, “but I’ll go along with your request. This is my first case in Palo Alto, and it will be good to deal with people I know.”

***

An hour later, at Barb and Bernie’s home, Barb recounted to Kelly what she had seen in the MRI room, and Bernie explained his undercover role. 

“Age discrimination, eh?” was Kelly’s first reaction. “They seem to be taking that to new extremes at MagniFique.”

“We’re just starting our investigation, Joe,” said Barb, “but it would be hard to disagree with you. We know that Green had been in a fight with his supervisor and that the next day he’d been asked by that supervisor to recalibrate the MRI machine in question. Because the intense magnetism of the machine turns metal objects into deadly projectiles, Green had put his wire-rimmed glasses in a box in the MRI operator’s room and, in order to do the recalibration, put on a pair of plastic goggles with the same prescription as his glasses. While Green’s back was turned, someone obviously put the glasses through the sliding glass window in the operator’s room and turned on the machine. The rest was done by Mother Nature.”

“Magneticide,” said Kelly, “that’s a new one on me. Since we can’t arrest a magnet, I will be interviewing all the suspects once we get the forensics on the crime scene. That will take the rest of the day, so there will be some delay.”

“I think I can speed things up for you,” said Bernie, offering a handshake. “Meet Malcolm Heller, MIT class of 1980. My undercover identity is why I look so nerdy. Is it ok if Barb and I go forward with the plan we had worked up before you got involved?”

“I’ll probably regret this,” responded Kelly, “but OK, Boomer.”

***

“Nice to meet you Malcolm,” said Jeremy Singer the next morning to Bernie aka Malcolm Heller. “I’m amazed the company could get you here so quickly to fill our empty Senior Engineer slot.”

“We Baby Boomers move a lot quicker than you might think,” said Malcolm. “I’m divorced, my kids are out of the house, and Trevor Lackley said I was needed here urgently. So I got on the first plane from Austin, Texas—where I work at a MagniFique facility--and I will deal with the details later.”

“I’m quite aware of how fast your generation moves,” said Jeremy, putting air quotes around the word “fast.” “Apparently one of my specialties is managing Baby Boomers, because I have several in my department. They seem to have no problem wasting my time with phone calls when a simple text would do.”

“I can assure you I have no problem being supervised by a younger person,” Bernie replied. “And I wear contact lenses, not glasses, so I’m hopeful I won’t experience any of the dangers I’ve recently heard about.”

“Horrible accident,” said Singer. “Oswald’s absence has created a gaping hole in our department. I’m sorry I don’t have time to take you to a welcome lunch today, but I’ve asked one of your peers to do the honors. Senior Engineer Elton Reardon will be stopping by your cubicle shortly before lunch.”

***

Bernie was not surprised when Elton Reardon turned out to be someone in his sixties, stocky, and with unusually dark brown hair that did not seem to be a shade that occurred in nature. One surprise, however, was that, aside from the casual dress customary at MagniFique—in this case, an untucked blue work shirt flowing over Dad jeans—Reardon had a small metal stud in one of his earlobes. As they got to know each other over lunch, Bernie couldn’t resist asking about it.

“Part of my effort to fit in,” Reardon replied. “You’ll see that a lot of the young guys have them, so I’m taking on the protective coloration of my environment.”

Noting a wedding ring on Reardon’s finger, Bernie inquired what Reardon’s wife thought of the pierced ear. “She’s just grateful that it’s not my nose,” Reardon replied. “She understands that I have to do my best to fit in with the youthful environment here. We don’t have much in savings, and, when we start getting Social Security checks—assuming that the Social Security system stays solvent—those will provide food, shelter or transportation, but not all three.”

“And how do you fit in here?” 

“The Millennials blame what they call our generation’s selfishness for everything bad—climate change, for example—so I just try to avoid those subjects. Oswald Green didn’t. You’ve heard of him, I assume.”

“I heard that he died in an accident—that’s why I’m here—but I don’t know much else.”

“Although I don’t want to speak ill of the dead,” Reardon said, “it’s a lot easier to fit in now that Oswald is gone. He thought that the golden age of everything occurred when he was coming up in the world, and he let everyone know that. For example, when a Millennial jokingly asked Oswald the other day if he did TikTok, Oswald responded—and not in a nice way—that he didn’t, but that he had other skills, like doing math without a calculator and telling time on a clock with hands. You get the idea.”

“I do,” said Bernie, ”but being unpleasant shouldn’t be a capital offense.”

Changing the subject, Reardon said, “Let’s talk shop for a second. I do know a lot about magnets, which helps me to fit in. For example, right now we’re having a problem with the gain receiver. Do you have expertise in that area.”

“No problem,” said Bernie, fiddling with his hearing aid in the unfulfilled hope that Rob Hirsch was listening in.

Looking at his watch, Reardon got up hurriedly, saying “Let’s discuss the gain receiver more later. Right now I have a deadline I need to meet.”

“Thanks for the information on fitting in,” said Bernie. “I don’t think I’ll get any piercings, but maybe I’ll do some square dancing on TikTok, order a case of kombucha and listen to more podcasts.”

***

While Bernie and Elton lunched, Barb was back in Heather Vickers’ office. “You ran out of the MRI room so quickly yesterday,” Barb said, “I came by to see if you’re okay.”

Vickers finished the text she was sending on her cellphone and looked up, trying to suppress the irritation she felt at having to deal with Oswald Green issues again. “Sorry to have left the scene so abruptly, Mrs. Silver, “but my job description doesn’t include discovering corpses, and I was in a state of shock. Still am.”

“Of course, my dear,” said Barb. “But I can assure you that, although discovering corpses is part of my job description, it always comes as a shock. Regardless, even though the complaining party is no longer among the living, I have to continue my investigation into age discrimination here. Do you have a few minutes to answer some questions?”

“Sure,” responded Vickers. “Let me just grab a cup of coffee down the hall, and then I think I can convince you that there’s no discrimination of any kind at MagniFique.”

She left the room, and Barb noticed that she left her cellphone on her desk. When she looked more closely, Barb saw that the text Vickers had just sent was still on the screen. It consisted of just two letters “XX,” in response to the following text from Jeremy Singer: “Oswald is dead and gone. I regret the former, but not the latter. XX”

***

Bernie called Rob Hirsch in a panic. “Jeremy Singer just texted me to come to his office for an assignment. Can you help me to avoid sounding like a complete ignoramus?”

“No problem, Bernie,” Hirsch responded. “Just make sure the volume on your ‘hearing aid’ is on high.”

Bernie then walked from his cubicle to Singer’s small office and knocked on the door. He was on the phone and motioned for Bernie to sit down. “Are you sure you can’t do it, Elton? I hate to send Malcolm down there before he’s been here even a day. The machines in Austin have different magnets from those in use here.”

Singer put the phone on speaker. Bernie then heard his lunch companion, Elton Reardon, say “I’m just finishing up the urgent project you sent me this morning, Jeremy. I can join Malcolm in about an hour.”

“Do your best,” responded Singer as he ended the call.

Turning to Bernie/Malcolm, Singer said, “We appear to have weak amplification in the machine in Room #4; it’s causing a deteriorated signal-to-noise ratio.”

“Can you repeat that?” said Bernie, turning his hearing aid up to the maximum.

Not even trying to hide his frustration, Singer repeated, in a louder voice, what he had said, after which Rob Hirsch’s voice came through the hearing aid to Bernie, saying “No problem. Tell him you will adjust the receiver gain.”

Bernie duly repeated that, which seemed to satisfy Jeremy. “Then get to it,” Jeremy ordered. “This issue is holding up some other important work.”

“I’m on it,” said Bernie. “’Receiver gain’ is one of my specialties.”

***

MRI Room #4 and its adjacent room for the MRI operator were deserted when Bernie arrived there a few minutes later. “Now what?” he asked Rob Hirsch through the hearing aid.

“Are you in the operator’s room?” asked Hirsch.

When Bernie responded affirmatively, Hirsch said “First, leave any metal you have on you in the box behind the operator’s chair.” Bernie left his car keys in the box.

“There should be some plastic tools near that box,” Hirsch continued. “Grab them.”

“Roger that,” responded Bernie. 

“OK, then enter the MRI room and move to the left of the MRI tube.” 

Fumbling with the tools and moving slowly, Bernie was in the process of doing that when, in rapid succession, he heard a loud, clattering noise, felt a searing pain in his leg and collapsed.

***

At the same time Bernie was in MRI Room #4, Barb was on the phone with Joe Kelly. “I think I have some evidence incriminating Jeremy Singer,” she said. She then described the texts she had seen and photographed on Heather Vickers’ phone. 

“Good work, Barb. I will come over to MagniFique immediately to bring Singer in for questioning.”

“Don’t you need to read him his rights?”

“I will do that when arresting him, and then I will take him for a little perp walk out the front door of MagniFique.”

***

Within two minutes of Kelly’s patrol car, lights flashing, pulling up to the front entrance of MagniFique, most of the 250 employees knew it, thanks to a software engineer who had seen Kelly’s car and who immediately reported that arrival on MagniFique’s instant messaging system. Within ten minutes, a protesting, handcuffed Jeremy Singer was being frog-marched to the front entrance, where a crowd of about twenty people, including Elton Reardon, had gathered.

As Kelly and Singer approached, Reardon suddenly stepped out of the crowd, holding his hands out. Looking at Kelly, his voice cracked as he said “I’m the one you want.”

***

“Did you suspect Reardon?” Al Jordan asked Barb and Bernie as they entered--Bernie on crutches--Jordan’s office for a debriefing the next day.

“I’m fine, Al,” said Bernie. “Thanks for asking.”

“Sorry,” said Al. “How are you, Bernie? I was so relieved to hear that you avoided Oswald Green’s fate that, I have to admit, I wasn’t as concerned about your leg injury as I should have been.”

“Ironically, I was saved by my titanium hip and thigh,” said Bernie. “It disrupted the MRI’s magnetic field just enough to direct my keys--which Elton Reardon had put through the sliding window into the MRI room--to my leg rather than to my skull.”

“To answer your original question about whether we suspected Elton Reardon,” Barb interjected, “we didn’t. All the evidence pointed to Jeremy Singer, with aid and comfort from Heather Vickers. They were obviously romantically involved and they had no love for Oswald Green, who had made both their lives miserable.”

“Apparently that didn’t set them apart from the rest of the world,” said Al. “It seems that Oswald had never won any popularity contests.”

“True,” said Barb, “but that’s no reason to kill him, and, actually, I don’t think Elton intended to do that. I think he just wanted to injure Oswald to get him out of MagniFique, where he was causing a problem for all the older employees like Elton—guilt by association, if you will. Elton desperately needed his job, and he feared that Oswald’s conduct put that in jeopardy.”

“I get that,” said Jordan, “but why did Elton try to do Bernie in?”

“Because I wasn’t in contact with Rob Hirsch when I had lunch with Elton,” responded Bernie, “I guess I didn’t sound exactly like what I was supposed to be, a Senior Engineer. Elton must have gotten suspicious, so he cagily asked me, as Malcolm, a question about a ‘gain receiver.’ Only later did I find out that the correct terminology is ‘receiver gain.’ After that blunder on my part, Elton must have surreptitiously taken a picture of me and then must have done an Internet search of that image. Since my picture is on the website of Silver Investigations, it wouldn’t have taken him long to find out who I was. Then, because, at our lunch, he had revealed to me his negative feelings toward Oswald Green, he panicked that he might become a suspect and decided to literally get me out of the picture.”

“That’s where Joe Kelly comes in,” continued Barb. “As Elton was waiting by the MagniFique entrance witnessing Jeremy Singer’s perp walk, he heard Jeremy loudly protesting his innocence. Of course, Elton knew that that protest was valid and realized that his actions had cast suspicion on an innocent man. Although he was not fond of Jeremy, whose treatment of older workers was truly shameful, Elton was stricken with guilt. He then committed the ultimate act of intergenerational cooperation by turning himself in.” 

“’Twas a far, far better thing he did than any selfish Boomer’s ever done,” intoned Bernie.

“But,” added Barb, continuing the Dickensian theme, “it is not a far, far better rest that he goes to than he has ever known. It’s ironic that he was motivated by a cost of living in retirement that he thought was beyond him: he won’t have to worry about that in prison.”

“Yes,” said Jordan, “you solved the homicide, but what about Oswald Green’s age discrimination case? Need I remind you that that’s why I hired you?”

“You lucked out on that one, Al,” said Barb. “The star witness would have been Oswald. His absence weakens the case considerably, so I’m guessing his estate will settle that claim for peanuts.”

“Also” added Bernie, “the main perpetrators of age discrimination—Jeremy and Heather—have been fired. She’s been replaced by a sixty-year old male, purporting to symbolize the lack of age discrimination at MagniFique. For a while, at least, I’m guessing that MagniFique will become a haven for elderly engineers.”

“Boomers rule,” observed Barb. “What else is new?”

“C’est magnifique,” said Bernie, grinning.

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Copyright 2022 Ron Katz